The invention relates to the transmission of additional contents accessible in interactive mode and associated with contents broadcast to communication terminals.
“Content” in this description means voluminous data sets defining a television or video or audio program (voice or musical) or games or multimedia or a computer (or “data”) file.
In this description, “communication terminal” means any type of communication equipment capable of receiving at least contents from a broadcasting network (fixed or mobile, and possibly satellite or hybrid). For example it could be television program reception equipment for example such as a “Set-top box” or a television set, video or musical program reception equipment, a fixed or portable computer, equipment onboard a vehicle (car, truck, bus, train and similar) or even a fixed or mobile (or cellular) telephone, or a personal digital assistant (or PDA).
In order to complete the contents that it broadcasts to customers and/or to interact with them, some content broadcasters or operators associate interactive services specific to these contents. For example, services may non-exhaustively include the provision of additional information, propose downloading of ringtones or musical or cinematographic works, sales of products and articles of all types, and display of a slow playback. This is done by having broadcasters include interactivity data in their content data, that offer interactive services at predefined instants, possibly in the form of menus. Thus, a customer who is looking at (or listening to) a content received using his terminal through the broadcasting network to which he is coupled, can see a special purpose message displayed at a given moment on the screen of his terminal, usually related to said content.
However, it is (very) difficult to use such interactive services when the content broadcast by a terminal is being viewed or listened to by several persons at the same time, as is frequently the case for family television sets or television sets located in public or private locations. Interactivity usually has a personal aspect that depends on the tastes and needs of each person. Furthermore, there are several disadvantages with broadcasting of messages at the same time as a content; it can be less comfortable for persons, it only provides interactive services to customers at predefined instants rather than when they actually need them or want them, and it only provides interactive services that are supposed to correspond to an average customer profile rather than customised services.
Consequently, although the provision of interactive services in addition to broadcast contents according to the above mentioned mode may be suitable for terminals without shared use, for example such as mobile (or cellular) telephones, personal digital assistants or portable computers, it is not suitable for terminals with shared use, for example such as television sets. Unfortunately, screens on terminals for which use is not shared are small or very small, which makes it difficult not only to read interactive messages, but also to read additional selected information within the context of interaction with the broadcaster or the operator.
It is proposed that customers who have shared use terminals can improve their access to interactivity, by using their personal mobile telephones using SMS (“Short Message System”) type messages, to reply to broadcast interactive messages. This avoids a customer disturbing other customers with which he is sharing a terminal, and it also means that several customers who share the same terminal can interact practically simultaneously with the broadcaster. But this solution is not integrated, and firstly obliges every customer to input a text message and a communication address, which is not always easy considering the small size of the keys on mobile terminals, and secondly it means that customers cannot transmit anything on their mobile terminals other than additional text type information and in very small quantities, because it is done using short messages. Furthermore, this solution does not solve the problem of customisation of interactive services, nor the problem of access to interactive services when customers want it.
There is no known solution that is fully satisfactory, therefore the purpose of the invention is to improve the situation.